Institutional Risk Analytics (IRA)
Institutional Risk Analytics (IRA) is a Southern California -based provider of risk ratings and analytics with a primary focus on the US public company and banking sector. IRA provides a both wholesale and retail analytics for banks based on FDIC data, and for public companies based on SEC data. IRA is a leader in the use of various XML dialects and other data formats for data transport and transformation. The firm has wide experience in processing data sources from unformatted plain text to XBRL.
The firm’s first success came by providing services to the audit sector. Business clients now include institutional analysts, investment funds, major accounting and professional services firms. IRA clients also include hundreds of individuals who subscribe to the company’s bank stress ratings reporting service over the internet. One of the unique hallmarks of IRA’s business model is that they provide outsourced analytics to other firms using an innovative web services model. The firm’s delivery model motto is “online, worldwide, in 30 seconds”. This allows publishers, banks, news organizations and other consumers of analytics to utilize robust classical analytics tools without maintaining these systems and the required staff internally.
History
IRA was founded in 2003 under the legal name Lord, Whalen LLC by co-founders R. Christopher Whalen (SVP) and Dennis Lewis Lord Santiago (CEO). The company has offices in Torrance, California. The original idea behind the company’s creation was to provide superior, flexible analytics tools for global enterprises. That model has since expanded to delivering equally superior tools to individual consumers thus making a market by leveling the playing field. Analytically, IRA represents one of a number of new analytics firms operating on and off Wall Street which focus on classical performance measures of solvency and financial soundness rather than the market-data based risk indicators that contributed to the crisis in the US financial system.
Executives
Dennis Santiago’s background begins in the aerospace industry as a military strategy analyst, but then migrates to the world of financial data and content, where he has established a reputation as one of the financial information industry’s most skilled designers, programmers and business process consultants.
Chris Whalen’s background is as an investment banker, research analyst and journalist, although he first worked in politics as a staffer for Congressman Jack Kemp (R-NY). He is frequently quoted in the financial media regarding banking and the financial markets.
Products and Services
The IRA Bank Monitor
The IRA Bank Monitor: A powerful performance and risk model covering all US banking institutions, including financial tests, Basel II credit ratings and risk metrics, Economic Capital and Risk Adjusted Return benchmarks comparable across all US bank units and bank holding companies. The system includes a unique bank stress index that is an explicit census of all FDIC insured banks. Unlike most ratings firms that focus on the equity markets, the IRA Bank Stress Index is actually a private version of the regulatory CAMELS type safety & soundness measure used by Federal regulators. In 2008, IRA made its’ ratings reports available for purchase by the general public over the internet. To ease usability by non-professionals, the company now states its’ overall bank risk ratings using an A+ to F letter grade format.
The IRA Corporate Monitor
The IRA Corporate Monitor: A fundamental analytics & peering engine performs fundamental analysis of US and international companies using a battery of test metrics drawn from academic and regulatory sources. This tool design has roots in Mr. Santiago’s past going back to his involvement with CBSMarketwatch in the 1990’s and subsequent endeavors in the financial information industry. IRA’s Corporate Monitor was originally used as an examples template for engineering implementations of internal toolkits to be embedded within institutional and corporate client information systems. The company now offers an online version of this tool to the public over the internet.
The IRA SEC Catalog
The IRA SEC Catalog: The IRA SEC Catalog Tools claims to deliver "second to none" capabilities to manage and mine the SEC's complex document base. The company’s free consumer version of IRA's SEC Catalog has allegedly become a ubiquitous tool on the internet for looking up public company filings.
Custom Consulting and Development
Custom development of analytic tools and infrastructure to support in-house creation and analysis of public companies and banks based on financial statements and “call reports” filed with the SEC and FDIC. A primary objective of IRA consulting services is to provide clients with enhanced analytics capabilities while reducing their cost by using public references sources and the web services model mentioned above. This approach is especially attractive to those of in the various XML communities since advances in internet capacity , processing power and storage will one day enable individual researchers and analysts to independently collect and manipulate vast bodies of financial statement data directly from portals such as www.fdic.gov, www.sec.gov and other international repositories.
Newsletters
IRA co-founder Christopher Whalen edit a popular free newsletter, the Institutional Risk Analyst, which provides insights into financial and political (finance focused) issues. Christopher’s long history on Wall Street and in Washington, coupled with his extensive contacts, allows for insights on regulation, company and bank performance that are not otherwise readily available. The Institutional Risk Analyst reflects the views of both of the founders, who often focus their combined comments on areas they believe contribute to the public good by helping people understand the world of finance and risk.
Blogs
Beginning in 2009, IRA co-founder Dennis Santiago started the blog Picking Nits to discuss some of the more technical and algorithmic aspects of IRA’s work.
IRA in the Media
As IRA’s public face, Christopher Whalen’s views are widely quoted, including in publications such as the New York Times and International Herald Tribune, Money.CNN, and on CNBC.
Chris has been vocal in his views on the financial system bail-out, and the role of Tim Geithner, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and nominee for Treasury Secretary to replace Paulson. Chris Whalen on CNN Money
As IRA’s chief executive officer and design architect, Dennis takes a lower public profile. Dennis is the technical and methodology media contact of IRA. He is the behind the scenes go to source for reporters seeking hard data for their articles. His occasional on screen appearances in the media tend towards helping explain the “larger view”.